"We'll go some times, so let's get on with it." No, that's not quite sufficient and I would encourage you to be deadly serious about death reflection! We had six students who were in the Tsunami. Two of them were in the water, two of them were on the beach and got caught in the waves, grabbing on to trees. Two of them were on the beach and ran away, although one was pulled away I should say. One ran and one was pulled away because they were scared petrified looking at the wave. They simply would have stayed there looking at the wave and be swept away if people hadn't pulled them away. It was that deadly serious.
Some time ago, Rosemary and I pulled up to a stop light, we were the third car back from the stop light. All of a sudden a car makes a turn and another 4 wheel drive Toyota, with a bull bar, collided with the car and killed the women who was a passenger in it. Get deadly serious about death reflection. It's coming anytime, anyhow, anywhere, to anybody.
The people in New York in the twin towers, they didn't expect to die that day when they went to work. Rosemary and I were in Washington DC at that time, my parents live very close to the Pentagon, my father worked there for twenty years. The airplanes crashing into the Pentagon and the Twin towers were totally unexpected. Anytime, anyhow, anywhere, anybody.
Do you really think you are immune to death? Most people do. It happens to somebody else, of course, it's in the newspaper, it's on the TV, but that's somebody else. It's always somebody else who dies. You'll never know by watching TV that you're dead. Let's get deadly serious.
Buddhism teaches that your thoughts at the moment of death help you in your next life, so train your thoughts.
Now let's talk about death on another level. Let's talk about the 6 year old you were, is that kid alive? Can you find the 6 year old who you were, alive today on the planet? That kid is "dead", that kid is gone, passed away. You have memories of that kid, your family and friends have memories of that kid, but that kid is "dead", gone. Now the kid you were at 10 years old, the kid you were at 15 years old. This is easy to see, those kids are "dead", gone. People don't seem to understand that who they were yesterday is dead, gone.
We want you to reflect deeply so you really understand that we are not the same person. That type of death reflection is also important. We are going to be gone, who we are right now is going to be gone. I did a death reflection meditation the night before Rosemary did one, yes, we want you to be deadly serious about it, to open to the possibility of it, we want to pump it in there.
We don't just want an attitude of, "Oh well, I'm just going to die, it doesn't really matter, who cares what I'm doing, blah, blah..." No, we want to be ready for it. It's the only certain thing that will happen to you. You get ready for lunch here, right? You get ready for tomorrow morning, all of you are ready for what's going to happen on day 1. You know where you think you're going to go. You are all ready for it. Let's get serious and prepare ourselves for this event - for the one thing we are definitely going to have happen to us.